This invention relates to a cartridge-like transport or holder for introducing sample material to a processing instrument and for receiving a biological specimen prepared from the sample material.
The cartridge apparatus of the invention is advantageously used, in at least one instance, in the clinical laboratory processing of a biological sample. More particularly, it is used in clinical laboratory processing in which cellular particles are collected from a liquid suspension of the sample and transferred to a microscope slide for examination, either electro-optically or by human viewing. The cellular particles are, as is advantageous, applied to the slide with essentially a monolayer and uniform distribution.
The term "cellular particles" is used herein to encompass cells, cell fragments and clusters or groups of cells and/or cell fragments. Clinical laboratory diagnostic testing with a monolayer distribution of cellular particles on a microscope slide, and apparatus and methods for performing such testing of the type with which the invention is advantageously practiced, are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,143,627, in co-pending U.S. application for patent Ser. No. 843,571 and in the commonly assigned and concurrently filed application entitled "Automated Specimen Processor Method and Apparatus". The disclosures of these documents are incorporated herein by this reference.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,143,627 describes an instrument for collecting a quantitatively measured number of biological cellular particles from suspension in a liquid sample and for transferring the counted collected particles, with an essentially monolayer and uniform distribution, to a viewing screen, typically a microscope slide. The instrument has disposable elements and containers that contact the sample material and accordingly that require replacement between the processing of successive samples, to avoid inter-sample contamination.